The Family Proceedings Rules 1991

Inspection etc of documents retained in court

10.20—(1) Subject to rule 10.21, a party to any family proceedings or his solicitor or the Queen’s Proctor or a person appointed under rule 2.57 or 9.5 to be the guardian ad item of a child in any family proceedings may have a search made for, and may inspect and bespeak a copy of, any document filed or lodged in the court office in those proceedings.

(2) Any person not entitled to a copy of a document under paragraph (1) above who intends to make an application under the Hague Convention (as defined in section 1(1) of the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985(1)) in a Contracting State (as defined in section 2 of that Act) other than the United Kingdom shall, if he satisfies the district judge that he intends to make such an application, be entitled to obtain a copy bearing the seal of the court of any order relating to the custody of the child in respect of whom the application is to be made.

(3) Except as provided by rules 2.36(4) and 3.16(1 0) and paragraphs (1) and (2) of this rule, no document filed or lodged in the court office other than a decree or order made in open court shall be open to inspection by any person without the leave of the district judge, and no copy of any such document, or of an extract from any such document, shall be taken by, or issued to, any person without such leave.

(1)

1985 c. 60.